


Will you wait for me?

by orphan_account



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Quentin Beck Is A Good Guy, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21905749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Peter was born with a soul mark.Quentin thought he’d never have a soulmate.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Quentin Beck/Peter Parker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 181





	Will you wait for me?

**Author's Note:**

> I love soulmate AU's so I wrote one sue me.
> 
> Also, quick note sexuality isn't seen as fixed in this, like some people may prefer their soulmates gender but if they have the name of a man it doesn't automatically mean they couldn't fall for a woman who isn't their soulmate.  
> Basically everybody could potentially fall in love with whomever it's just that their soulmate is "perfect" for them.

Quentin fell in love with the idea of having a soulmate at an early age.

His grandmother told him the story of how she’d met his grandfather many a time. And while his father never talked about his mother or how they’d met, he knew that they loved each other deeply despite being separated so early. 

When he was four some of the kids in kindergarten already had their soul marks and some of his friends had them appear on their forearm by Christmas. His cousin Maguire even found her soulmate by the age of five.

To say he was jealous was an understatement he wished for his soulmate's name to finally appear on his arm. Terry kept saying maybe they couldn't write their name yet.

Rationally he knew she had a point, but he himself learned to write his name as soon as he could hold a pen.

🔮

By the time he was nine, Quentin had learned patience. Terry was probably right they simply were too young to write or even attempt to scribble something resembling a name.

🔮

When he was thirteen he still told himself they weren’t born yet. He thought about them sometimes. He wondered if they were a girl or a boy. If they were tall or short. Whether they had dark hair and light eyes or the other way around. 

He had his first real crush that same year. It had been on a girl with long wavy brown hair and hazel eyes, she had a soulmate and wasn't interested in him, a broken boy.

In the following months, his crush faded, and as he met a boy with deep brown eyes and black hair he was fascinated with him instead. The boy didn't have a soulmate either, but he believed once the name showed up it be that of a pretty blonde girl with ocean blue eyes like Quentin's. 

He always said he liked Quentin's eyes even though they seemed to be perpetually sad and tired.

His friend's soulmate ended up being a little boy with fiery red curls and vibrant green eyes. 

🔮

Once he was fifteen he’d given up on the idea of a soulmate. He no longer cared if there was a name on his wrist. He wore long sleeves even in the California heat to hide the fact that he didn’t have one but he refused to let his childish dreams define him.

He started to believe they might be dead and he was doomed to never have a soulmate.

However at a party in early August he felt a small shock zip up his left arm but he chalked it up to the alcohol buzzing through his body and the smoke burning his lungs.

🔮

He was nineteen when his mark appeared. He was tinkering, messing around with some tech he’d thought up when his arm started to burn as if somebody took a knife to carve into it. He pushed the sleeve of his MIT hoodie back and stared at the five letters taking up almost the entirety of his forearm. PEter was scrawled along his arm in what looked like crayon so messily only a small child could have written it. 

Quentin sighed. He had a soulmate after all, but he’d still have to wait for them, no _him_. He traced the name with a finger. A smile found its way on his face. Quentin thought he’d never have a soulmate, at least Peter never had to go through waiting for Quentin's name. Peter just had to wait for Quentin to find him.

🔮

His mark changed over the years as his soulmate grew up. The messy PEter turned into a slightly neater PETER P. by the time he’d graduated and found a job. Once he started working for Stark Industries it was now a sharp-edged cursive Peter Parker. Once Peter filled out his first legal document it stayed the same: Peter Benjamin Parker.

Quentin was tempted to look him up. There were databases for soulmates, but Peter was still too young. From his calculations, he was possibly thirteen. He could wait another few years but he registered his soul mark in case Peter wanted the security of him being out there waiting.

He almost laughed at the thought, it felt like he'd been waiting all his life.

The lady gave him a dubious look as he went to have it logged. He knew he was old to have his mark archived, but it had been changing until a good year ago. He told her as much right after she made him tell her his birthday. He wasn’t really lying the letters had gotten rounder a little neater if not by much over the last two or three years.

She told him there was a match, registered in a hospital in Queens on August 10th, 2001. Quentin left her office without another word.

🔮

Quentin hadn’t consciously covered his soul mark since the day it appeared. He didn’t care if people judged him for having a man as his soulmate or if some of his former coeds knew his soulmate was at least a decade and a half his junior. He didn’t care if his coworkers stared at his mark intently as they saw what was likely a kid writing clumsily stretching along his arm. 

Tony Stark was the only one who had ever been bold enough to make a comment about his mark. 

“Don’t you think he’s a bit young for you?” There had been judgment in his voice as he asked.

“The universe didn’t seem to think so,” Quentin answered absentmindedly and continued to work at their project. Tony fiddled with a screwdriver.

“You’ve met him?” His voice was laced with an edge of distrust as he prodded further.

Quentin stopped working, setting down the chip he’d been soldering. “No, and if I have a say in it I won’t until he’s eighteen. Now stop grilling me and hand me that sensor.” 

For once Tony did as he was told and didn’t feel the need to bring up the subject again, not until years later.

🕸️

Peter was born with his soul mark. Crisp letters taking up his small forearm. His mother cried as she saw the man’s name etched into her son’s skin. They had it registered right there in the hospital.

He was proud to have a soul mark since birth, some of the other kids were envious of him. Most of them were mean about it, they said his soulmate was old because of his handwriting. Others called him names because he had a boy's name inked into his skin and in his darkest moments he hoped they’d never find their own soulmate.

He knew it wasn't their fault that their parents thought them all boys should have girls' names and vice versa despite history proofing them wrong.

Aunt May told him to ignore their comments, of course. She told him to be happy there was somebody out there made just for him. Like Ben was for her.

They never talked about his parents anymore it been two years since they’d died. Peter didn’t remember them all too well besides his mother insisting he kept his mark covered. He didn’t want to, he wanted everybody to see he was one of the lucky few. Her eyes turned misty every time he showed somebody and he didn’t understand why. 

🕸️

Once uncle Ben died he wished for his soulmate to come to find him. Ned patted his back and held him as he cried. They endlessly built Star Wars Lego sets to keep his mind occupied and guessed what their soulmates looked like.

In the end, Ned was the one to suggest checking his entry in the database. 

Peter had to ask May for the login data to investigate if there even was a registered match for his mark.

She found the envelope after rifling through a documents folder for some time while Peter looked over her shoulder.

“Peter, your parents didn’t want you to have this until you were eighteen,” May said as she held the folded document out to him.

“Why?”

“Your mother, she had somebody find him. Apparently there were only three Quentin Beck’s in the world who could write at the time of your birth. One was ninety years old and found his soulmate in 1947 another one was twenty-four and had the name of a girl on his left arm and the third was a fifteenth-year-old from California and had no soul mark. She deduced he must be your soulmate, but you deserve to meet him. You never know how long you have.” 

She teared up and he hugged her until she told him not to worry and find his soulmate. 

The letter contained the username and password he required to review his entry. He was nervous as he read through the instructions and shakily typed the URL into his browser. Once he reached the login page he hesitated.

What if there was no entry? What if his soulmate had gotten frustrated with waiting? He knew Quentin was alive because his mark was as black as the day he was born not the same reddish scar-like texture of aunt May’s. 

He called Ned once he started typing his username careful to not make a mistake.

Peter knew he had drawn the check pot in the best friend lottery once Ned agreed to come over at 10 pm on a Friday night probably blowing off some gaming fun. If there were such a thing as platonic soulmates in this universe Ned's name should be scrawled right underneath Quentin's.

They sat on his bed both staring at the screen of his laptop as Peter entered the password and finished his login. He was nervous as he looked at his profile. He flicked his eyes over the personal data provided for his soulmate. There was a picture of his mark from the day he was born and another one taken just a few years ago. It was mandatory for children born with soul marks to have it updated every ten years if they hadn’t found their match yet.

The third photo was of his name in his own handwriting it looked a bit sharper than how he signed now, had more edges than soft swoops not like the mark on his arm. It was soft, pretty even.

Ned had him write out his name on a slip of paper before he logged in. He had it leaning against the screen as he scrolled lower. There was a match with two pictures. One of his forearm, muscular and manly, and a scanned piece of paper with Quentin Beck written on it.

The writing matched Peter’s mark perfectly and vice versa. 

He eagerly looked at the data provided. It was blank except for his name and Peter felt like crying once again. Ned pointed at a footnote stating the pictures had been logged nearly two years ago and that Mr. Beck requested to stay as anonymous as possible until Peter’s eighteenth birthday. There was a contact form linked below and Peter opened it as soon as he saw the blue text. 

He entered his e-mail and requested Quentin’s data with a few hastily typed sentences. An automated reply from the International Soulmate Registry popped up in his inbox almost instantly. 

Ned left twenty minutes later and Peter cried for half the night. 

🔮

He was in a meeting, a boring meeting, and Quentin was tracing the mark on his arm. It looked bruised, had looked that way for a few months ever since he didn’t respond to Peter’s request to be granted access to his personal information. He knew it was unfair, Quentin had all his personal details. Knew how old he was, where he lived and Peter only knew his name nothing else. He knew the boy wanted to meet him.

Peter had sent five requests for the ban to be lifted, he denied all of them. The bruises started three months ago first there was only red surrounding his mark then came blue and where the colors seemed to mix his skin was a deep purple in spots even black. 

Everybody stared when he had his sleeves rolled up, but he didn’t care because Peter’s feelings were so strong they manifested on his skin. It wasn’t exactly rare to have colors surrounding your mark if you found your soulmate but everybody knew Quentin didn’t know his and the colors were overwhelmingly negative. 

Red for anger, blue for sadness, from what he could tell the purple probably symbolized loathing and the black stood for depression. 

He wondered what Peter's forearm looked like. Blue if his own emotions where anything to go by and green so much green because he felt guilty for making the boy hurt. He wasn’t sure if the self-loathing was strong enough to appear on his skin or if everything was drowned out by green.

Tony held him back once the meeting was over and pointed at his arm. “He really hates you,” he said almost placatingly.

Quentin didn’t answer.

He put in a request for a transfer back to the Los Angeles HQ two days later. He claimed it was about his father not the new intern with his left arm covered in green, streaked with blue and an ugly brownish-gray and in the midst of it Quentin Beck. Tony allowed it, but he must have known.

🕸️

Peter tore off his t-shirt as soon as he was home from school his mark had grown larger since he started his internship. He stared at himself in the mirror. There was so much green it spread down his chest along the side of his ribs and over his shoulders and back. One tendril circled his neck as if it wanted to suffocate him.

Guilt, Quentin was drowning in it and he was painting Peter green for everyone to see.

May didn’t ask about the green swirls peeking out from the neck and now both arms of his t-shirt. She knew and maybe she regretted giving the envelope to him so early. He might have been happy meeting him in a few years or maybe not.

People at school seemed concerned as they saw him with green swirling nearly all visible skin of his body. He didn’t hide it and Mr. Harrington went as far as to pull him aside and ask if his soulmate was okay.

Peter answered truthfully, “No.”

🕸️

While at the Tower Peter overheard some engineers gossiping about Beck, the guy who designed the holo tech.

He looked him up and sure enough, his first name was Quentin and he was from California. Peter asked about him and was told he no longer worked in New York despite the company website saying otherwise.

Mr. Stark told him he went back to California barely a month ago to be with his sick father.

He explained Quentin had only come to New York because of the projects he was working on with Mr. Stark.

He cried once he got home. He’d been so close to meeting the man he was supposedly destined to be with. 

🕸️

Peter turned sixteen and finished his summer internship. Mr. Stark offered him to continue it after school and he accepted. The green slowly faded from his torso and the sadness in Peter's chest lessened as he found himself developing a relationship with Liz.

She didn’t believe in soulmates and while she was hesitant at first she believed him once he said his own didn’t want him.

It didn’t last because a few days to Christmas his soul mark faded to a dull gray. Quentin was dying. At first, he didn’t notice, didn’t see it because he had his arm around Liz as they watched a movie on his couch. She pointed it out to him as she played with his fingers and he was suddenly hysterical. He was calling Mr. Stark while tears started to stream down his cheeks.

“He’s dying,” he sobbed into the phone in lieu of a hello.

Tony refused to put him on a private jet to LA and he couldn’t take a commercial flight because he didn’t have a passport or the money to buy a ticket a few days to Christmas let alone get a flight.

He was staring at his mark instead of the twenty-seven text from his girlfriend. When he woke up on Christmas Day, she was his ex-girlfriend and he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

🔮

Quentin felt weak once he woke. He was pale, but Peter’s mark was a rich black surrounded by swirls of Peter's distress. Sadness, worry, and fear colored his skin. He tiredly wondered if he was crying back in New York if he was obsessively watching his mark to make sure Quentin didn’t die on him.

He fell back asleep. In his dream, Peter held his hand crying beside him, begged him not to leave him as his uncle had. 

A heavy hand ripped him from his restless nap. His father stared back at him and Quentin groaned.

🔮

Quentin recovered from the knife he took to the gut.

His father got better for a while. It was nearly June until he was hospitalized again. Quentin stayed in California even as he found out his soulmate had a girlfriend.

It proved his point that the kid was better off without him. He had friends that loved him, an aunt who cared for him like a mother and Stark who loved the boy like a son. 

Peter turned seventeen and he sent him an email. 

🕸️

Peter was out on a birthday date with MJ. She wore the black dahlia pendant he’d bought for her in Venice. They had their first kiss at the Eiffel Tower and it was sweet, romantic even.

His skin was void of color now, had been for a long time. He thought about Quentin every day even as he looked at MJ illuminated by the sun. Her hair looked like she had a halo and he pulled out his phone to take a picture while she wasn’t paying attention. 

He never took the picture because there were two notifications on his phone one for an email sent by q.beck@stark-industries.com and one for his Instagram. Quentin had accepted Peter's request to view his private account. 

He opened the email first. 

_Happy birthday, kid._

_Love,_

_Your soulmate_

He almost cried from happiness over a stupid email and he wondered if his emotions were strong enough to manifest on his soulmates skin all the way across the country. MJ shot him a weird look as he locked his phone and shoved it into his pocket hastily. He kissed her cheek to distract her.

They went back to his apartment and made out on his bed. MJ had her hands under his shirt and he didn’t mind until they skimmed lower reaching his belt. He stopped her then, not expecting her to be so forward. They’d barely been dating six weeks.

Peter told her he wasn’t ready and she frowned at the name on his skin. He didn’t cover it. He hadn’t been able to cover it when it reached past his sleeves as his skin was vibrant with Quentin’s emotions and he didn’t see the point afterward.

MJ didn’t have a soulmate, her skin was bare. She liked to think they died before she was born. She made up tragic scenarios in her head and told them to him and their friends.

Betty told her it was insensitive to say things like that when her soulmate could be like Peter and Quentin with a large age gap between them. She didn’t actually use them as an example but rather generalized yet all of them knew what she implied. 

“It’s because of him isn't it?” MJ asked.

Peter thought about lying, but he was a terrible liar. “I always thought my first time would be with my soulmate. I know him MJ. I’ve seen him once at Stark Tower he just brushed past me. By the time I knew it was him, he was gone.”

“Why did you even ask me to be your girlfriend if you love him?” she sounded hurt and he knew he deserved whatever she’d do next.

“I’m not interested in being a placeholder until he wants you.” MJ opened the necklace and dropped it on his bed before she left without a goodbye.

He didn’t cry just opened Instagram and looked at Quentin's photos. 

🕸️

Betty refused to talk to him once school started again. He guessed he deserved it. He’d hurt two of her friends now because he was so desperate to be loved by his soulmate he tried to fill the void with other people's love.

He’d emailed with Quentin for the rest of the summer break until he sent him his phone number. Peter wanted him to call, he wanted to know what his soulmate sounded like. 

They texted. Sometimes Peter even texted him when he was at school mostly in Mr. Harrington's class and Quentin would reprimand him for it. Peter sent him a selfie at lunch because the man hadn’t replied in three hours and he knew Quentin had the day off because he had been at work until two am the night before. 

The reply came roughly an hour later in the form of a sweaty selfie of his own. Peter cursed the fact that he had another class and a half until he could get home and stare the bare expanse of Quentin’s shoulders and possibly jerk off to the other photo he’d downloaded from the man’s Instagram. 

Ned crashed his afternoon plans and it was probably for the best.

🔮

Quentin’s father died in March. Only a few days after Quentin’s thirty-third birthday. He didn’t text Peter for two weeks. He had been ignoring his calls since his birthday.

Quentin wasn’t sure what had gotten into the kid. Hormones he reasoned. Peter was a teenager after all. He hadn’t been this bold before. He’d seemed shy and rambly when they talked on the phone. Not like the type to send a picture of himself grabbing the visible tent in his pajama pants.

🕸️

Peter didn’t tell Ned about his failed attempt to seduce his soulmate. No, he told MJ who laughed at him. They’d gone back to being friends pretty quickly after he apologized for his behavior and she waved him off saying it was okay she knew what she was getting into. She vaguely added she might not be into people like he was into people anyway.

Peter was sure it was the most roundabout way of her saying she wasn’t into guys he’d ever heard. Or people romantically speaking no matter their gender, he wasn't quite certain.

If he was honest he wasn’t positive if he was into girls sure he liked the idea of them, but the thought of Quentin kissing him had had Peter hard in a second flat before. 

She was still laughing at him now. “He just ghosted you after you sent him a picture of you grabbing your dick?” 

“His father died a week later, but yeah.”

Her face sobered some, but her eyes still glinted with mirth. “Knowing you, you’ve been texting him 24/7.”

Peter ducked his head trying to hide the blush. Sadly she wasn’t wrong.

MJ started laughing again.

🔮

Quentin moved back to New York at the end of May. He’d sold his father’s house surprisingly quickly and Tony was delighted to have him back on the east coast. He didn’t tell Peter because he didn’t want to distract him from graduating. 

Peter said he wanted him to come to his graduation ceremony.

He worked some floors below Peter at the Tower and he visited Stark’s lab as soon as he’d finished his last exam. 

Quentin wasn’t sure what he expected but certainly not the kid flinging himself at him and clumsily kissing him on the corner of the mouth. He kissed his nose and Peter wrinkled it in offence. 

Peter clung to his side for the rest of the afternoon not getting any of the work, Stark had asked him to do, done. 

🕸️

Betty whispered about the hot guy sitting beside his aunt. Of course, this prompted Flash to be a dick even as they graduated and ask if May had found herself a boy toy. Peter bristled as Betty called his soulmate daddy. MJ held his balled fists as Flash continued to annoy him by disrespecting his boyfriend. 

Peter was by Quentin’s side as soon as the last of them had received their diploma. He tucked himself under the older man’s arm and kissed his cheek. May smiled at them. 

Flash looked confused mouth gaping like a fish. Betty asked if this was his soulmate and promptly apologized for her earlier sentiment. Peter waved it off.

He was happily tucked against Quentin’s side. For now, that was all he cared about. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my self-indulgent AU!


End file.
